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Andrea Knabel (36) missing from Louisville, KY since 8/13/19

The search for Knabel is about to enter its second week, and investigators and others in the community have ramped up their efforts in recent days. Louisville Metro Police have opened a missing person's case, and daily searches are taking place in the area where she went missing.

Knabel was last seen walking around Louisville's Audubon Park neighborhood around 1 a.m. on Aug. 13 after leaving a residence in the area, investigator Tracy Leonard has said. No one has seen her since that early Tuesday morning.

Knabel made a call from her cellphone around 1:30 a.m. to a friend inquiring about a ride, investigator Dan Washington said, but calls to her phone are now directed straight to voicemail. She was on foot when she was last seen, he added. There were several security cameras in the neighborhood, Leonard previously said, but many were not active.

Knabel was walking along the 4000 block of Fincastle Road when she was last seen. Investigators are searching that area and others around the region, Washington said.

Police and investigators are searching Louisville and surrounding areas for Knabel, Washington said. LMPD spokesman Dwight Mitchell confirmed the department has a missing person's investigation open for Knabel and is also searching for her.

Anyone with information can contact the LMPD crime time hotline at 502-574-5673. Leonard and Washington can be reached at 502-618-9337 and 502-722-8181, respectively.

A Kentucky mother of two who searches for missing people has now seemingly disappeared herself.

Andrea Knabel, 37, was last seen leaving a relative's home in the Audubon Park neighborhood of Louisville around 1 a.m. on Aug. 13, according to Missing in America, the organization for which she volunteers.

Around 1:30 a.m., she used her cellphone to call her friend and ask for a ride, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported. Several security cameras are located in the neighborhood, but many weren't active when she was in the area.

A friend of Knabel's told WAVE the single mother "was upset and she needed a ride" — and was too trusting of other people.

"Obviously she was trying to get ahold of people, maybe she got in the car with the wrong person," said Maricia Kidd, who has known Knabel for 30 years. She noted Knabel's car was recently totaled in a hit-and-run accident and said she'd been laid off at work.

"Here she is helping to locate people and she comes up missing herself," said Tracy Leonard, a private investigator and friend of Knabel. “She’s just a super great girl. She helped me locate a missing teen about a year and a half ago."

The group's founder, Nancy Schaefer Smith, said that Knabel, a "dedicated member" of Missing in America, is the first volunteer ever to disappear like this.

"She is loved by so many people," Smith told the Courier-Journal. "It's all hands on deck. She's my girl...We're going to find her."

I don't know why, but I can't help but wonder if this is a voluntary disappearance.

Investigators and volunteers searching for Andrea Knabel, a Louisville mother who went missing in August, are now following up on two reported sightings of her near a soup kitchen in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Private investigator Tracy Leonard told The Courier Journal that the two possible sightings near the Jeffersonville Community Kitchen, 1611 Spring St., were shared with investigators Monday morning.

"It was just eye witness info, but we are canvassing the area for video," Leonard said Wednesday.
Andrea Michelle Knabel, a single mom from Louisville, Kentucky, has been missing since Aug. 13, 2019, when she was last seen on Fincastle Road near the Audubon Park and Camp Taylor neighborhoods. Knabel has helped search for missing persons herself as a member of Missing in America.

Andrea Michelle Knabel, a single mom from Louisville, Kentucky, has been missing since Aug. 13, 2019, when she was last seen on Fincastle Road near the Audubon Park and Camp Taylor neighborhoods. Knabel has helped search for missing persons herself as a member of Missing in America. (Photo: Provided)

Leonard urged everyone interested in the case to "keep eyes open for her."

On Aug. 13 about 1 a.m., Knabel, a 37-year-old single mother of two children, was walking in the 4000 block of Fincastle Road near Louisville's Audubon Park and Camp Taylor neighborhoods when she vanished.

The team of private investigators and volunteers searching for her have not revealed much more on why she may have walked off, but Leonard previously said "she was pretty upset, pretty wound up when she left walking."

Loved ones and investigators also said Knabel had been going through difficult times after getting laid off recently and having her car totaled in a hit-and-run accident.

In the two months since she went missing, volunteers and investigators have conducted frequent searches around the Louisville area and across the Ohio River in Southern Indiana.

The family of Andrea Knabel, a Louisville mother missing since August, is upping the monetary reward for information that leads to her whereabouts, and a private investigator provided new details Saturday night that shed more light on what happened before Knabel vanished.

Mike Knabel said the team searching for his 37-year-old daughter, a single mother of two boys, is hopeful the increased reward of $5,000 versus the initial $1,000 amount will result in more tips and Andrea's discovery.

"I'm ready to do anything if we need to do more," Mike Knabel told The Courier Journal on Friday. "My daughter might have just walked away on purpose. We don't know. ... We've had so many false leads."

Though investigators have previously said Knabel was walking about 1 a.m. Aug. 13 in the 4000 block of Fincastle Road near Louisville's Audubon Park and Camp Taylor neighborhoods when she vanished, private investigator Tracy Leonard provided an updated timeline Saturday night in a Facebook Live video.

Leonard said Knabel had been at a McDonald's on Poplar Level Road the evening of Aug. 12 with her sister's boyfriend and a nephew before she was taken to the Kentucky One Health Medical Center Jewish East, 3920 Dutchmans Lane, to receive treatment for "injuries to her face allegedly from some type of infection."

At 11:22 p.m. on Aug. 12, Knabel took a Lyft from the hospital back to her mother's home on Chickadee Road in Audubon Park and arrived at 11:34 p.m., Leonard said.

Knabel was living at her mother's home at the time along with her sister, Sarah, and the sister's boyfriend, Ethan Bates, who drove Knabel to the hospital late on Aug. 12, Leonard said.

Knabel's two children, boys who are six and eight years old, had each been staying with their fathers that night, Leonard told The Courier Journal. Knabel is separated from the two fathers of her two boys, he added.

Mike Knabel said his ex-wife — Andrea's mother — was not at her home at the time, as it was under renovation. Sarah Knabel and Bates were staying at the property to help renovate it, Mike Knabel said.

At 12:15 a.m. on Aug. 13, Knabel walked about a mile over to the home of her other sister, Erin, on Fincastle Road, Leonard said.

An argument at her sister's home made Knabel walk back to her mother's house at about 1:38 a.m. and arrive at 1:54 a.m., where Sarah Knabel and Bates were, Leonard said.

Knabel "experienced some rejection" from that sister as well and eventually vanished after leaving the Chickadee Road house, Mike Knabel said.

Leonard added that Knabel was locked out of the Chickadee Road home as part of an argument but declined to provide more details at this point in the investigation.

It would be a few hours before her phone went dead, Leonard said Saturday.

Leonard said investigators have determined that Knabel's phone was still active at her home on Chickadee Road at 6:31 a.m. Aug. 13.

When Louisville police later conducted a search warrant at the Chickadee Road home, Knabel's phone was not found, according to Leonard.

Leonard said Knabel's brother-in-law, Bates, told investigators that Louisville Metro Police interviewed him for several hours and cleared him of any possible wrongdoing.

"We have no evidence that Ethan and Sarah had any wrongdoing in this at all," Leonard said.
Andrea Michelle Knabel, a single mom from Louisville, Kentucky, has been missing since Aug. 13, 2019, when she was last seen on Fincastle Road near the Audubon Park and Camp Taylor neighborhoods. Knabel has helped search for missing persons herself as a member of Missing in America.

Andrea Michelle Knabel, a single mom from Louisville, Kentucky, has been missing since Aug. 13, 2019, when she was last seen on Fincastle Road near the Audubon Park and Camp Taylor neighborhoods. Knabel has helped search for missing persons herself as a member of Missing in America. (Photo: Provided)

While initial reports suggested another Lyft driver had been in the area when Knabel went missing, Leonard reiterated how those reports are not legitimate.

But the Lyft driver who took Knabel from the hospital to Chickadee Road has refused several interview requests from investigators, Leonard said.

On Nov. 3, Cajun Coast Search and Rescue -- a professional K-9 unit out of Louisiana -- arrived in Louisville to begin helping with the search. The group searched most of Sunday afternoon, and started again around 9:30 Monday morning. Andrea's family members and other volunteers were also taking part.

"Right now the dog is basically looking for any human scent, whether it's living or deceased," said Cajun Coast Search and Rescue's commander Toney Wade.

Wade has been in Kentucky several times before for other cases, including the search for Savannah Spurlock.

"The location she (Spurlock) was found was a location we wanted to target but we couldn't get a search warrant at the time," said Wade.

On Monday, he and his K-9 were focusing their search for Knabel on a wooded area near Audubon Hospital.

The Finding Andrea Facebook page says the group is funded solely by donations, and is working together with the family's private investigator, Tracy Leonard, who recently received tips that Knabel was spotted at the Youngstown Shopping Center on Tenth Street in Jeffersonville.

Despite receiving that tip, the family said Monday they do not believe investigators have any credible leads, but they're thankful Cajun Coast Search and Rescue decided to help.

"From what we know, there are no leads," said Knabel's father, Michael Knable. "There are none as far as we know that are credible and we're hoping that she's still around -- in town here or out of town -- either way we'd be very happy to reconnect with her and bring her back home."

The K-9 unit says the job isn't easy, but they hope to find some answers for the family.